Raining mud? Rare California haboob brings strange weather to Central Valley

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – From Bakersfield to Merced, radical crossed the Central Valley reported ample walls of dust; though commonplace for the Sahara and Sonoran deserts, haboobs similar this are a uncommon lawsuit successful California.

As a tempest collapses, acold dense aerial rushes downward. Once it reaches the ground, the aerial is forced to question horizontally up of the storm, dragging with it particulate and debris.

When the unit is beardown enough, it tin make a partition of dust, often stretching miles agelong and respective 1000 feet precocious - and sometimes, creating a unreality truthful heavy it tin marque the time look arsenic night.

Although nary blackouts too PG&E outages were reported successful the Central Valley connected Monday, the 30+ mile-an-hour winds knocked down trees and spewed debris crossed section roadways.

Porterville felt the brunt of the storm, with sustained upwind speeds of 36 mph - lone a fewer miles an hr shy of a tropical storm. Diana Merzoian, who was successful Porterville astatine the time, told Yourcentralvalley.com that it adjacent began to rainfall mud astatine 1 point.

The National Weather Service advised that “infants, the aged and others with respiratory conditions are urged to instrumentality contiguous precautions” from the blowing dust.